Debra Messing starts over on the USA network

Next Thursday on USA, the miniseries The Starter Wife premieres. Based on the Gigi Levangie Grazer novel of the same name, it stars Debra Messing as a woman named Molly whose Hollywood husband dumps her for someone younger. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be drawn to this at all, but in NYC, it has been difficult to ignore the giant ads on the sides of buses. They look like this, only with a white background:

Here’s my question about those ads: Since when can you just declare something "a major television event"? Isn’t that reserved for epic dramas like Roots or The Thorn Birds? (An aside: The first time I typed that, it came out The Thunderbirds. Sigh.) Can you just create an event with an ad campaign?

Despite that chicanery, I might give the miniseries a try, mostly because the cast also includes Judy Davis in what Entertainment Weekly calls "the boozy, wisecracking gal role."

I’ve missed Judy; where has she been? I don’t think I’ve seen her since Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, in which she was amazing.

And let’s not forget Serving in Silence, in which she got to kiss Glenn Close. It was such a big deal at the time — you might even call it a major television event.

Entertainment Weekly says Debra Messing is "absolutely lovely" in The Starter Wife, so maybe it will turn out OK in the end. But I still don’t think it will be “major” in any way, and I hope the ad campaign ends soon.